Group urges constitutional recognition of gender-diverse Fijians

The Trans Affirmative Action Guild (TAAG) has told the Constitutional Review Commission that discrimination against gender-diverse Fijians is a colonial import, not a homegrown value.

And they are urging stronger protections for VST+ (vakasa, sian, trans, and non-binary) communities in the country's supreme law.

In a written submission to the CRC, TAAG argued that long before colonial-era laws reshaped Fiji's social fabric, iTaukei and Rotuman societies recognised gender diversity through the vakasalewalewa, vakasagane, sian-han, and sian-fa continuums.

TAAG foundress and chief executive officer Ratu Eroni Ledua Dina said erasing gender and sexual minorities from the Constitution betrayed, rather than honoured, ancestral tradition.

"Exclusion and prejudice were never native to Fiji. Our ancestors built communities anchored in deep empathy and collective shelter," Ratu Eroni said.

"By strengthening Section 26 to protect our VST+ children, sisters, and brothers, the commission is not introducing a foreign ideology.

"We are simply bringing our people home to the indigenous warmth, dignity, and protection they have always deserved."

The submission also calls for constitutional parity frameworks to advance women in leadership, protection of intersex children from non-consensual surgeries, legal documentation that reflects trans citizens' identities, and the safeguarding of Section 4, which establishes Fiji as a secular state.

TAAG said it was ready to provide oral testimony to the commission and warned that national unity could not be built by compromising the safety of the vulnerable.